Science, art, or somewhere inbetween

MACS 40700 University of Chicago

Tufte’s world

Core purpose of visualization is to communicate quantitative information
- “Above all else show the data”
Data-ink - non-erasable core of a graphic

\[\text{Data-ink ratio} = \frac{\text{data-ink}}{\text{total ink used to print the graphic}}\]
What should we consider to be part of the “data-ink”?

What is integral?

Starting point

Remove panel box

Remove minor grid lines

Remove all grid lines

Remove tick marks

Use serif font

Chart junk

Vibrating moire effects
The grid
The duck
Asserts all chart junk is bad - on what basis?

Line plot

Minimal line plot

Boxplot

Minimal boxplot

Barchart

Default themes

p + theme_bw(base_size = base_size)

p + theme_dark(base_size = base_size)

p + theme_classic(base_size = base_size)

p + theme_minimal(base_size = base_size)

p + theme_void(base_size = base_size)

Minimal barchart

Bivariate scatterplot

Range-frame graph

With a quartile plot

When is redundancy better?

Traditional bar chart of crime in the city of San Francisco, 2009-10. Source: Visualizing Time with the Double-Time Bar Chart

Double-time bar chart of crime in the city of San Francisco, 2009-10. Source: Visualizing Time with the Double-Time Bar Chart

Minimalism in practice

Chart from Harvard magazine. Source: Involuntary head-shaking is probably not an intended consequence of data visualization

Minimalism in practice

Redesigned chart from Harvard magazine. Source: Involuntary head-shaking is probably not an intended consequence of data visualization

Experimental tests of Tufte’s claims

Source: Figure 2 from Bateman, Scott, et al. Useful junk?: the effects of visual embellishment on comprehension and memorability of charts. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2010.

Results

Source: Figures 4-6 from Bateman, Scott, et al. Useful junk?: the effects of visual embellishment on comprehension and memorability of charts. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2010.

Rethinking Tufte’s definition of visual excellence

Too many of Tufte’s claims are based on nothing
Hockey stick chart vs. xkcd on Earth’s temperature
Experimental design